Mobile devices are integral to the daily lives of most users. Mobile devices are used to make voice calls, check email and text messages, update social media pages, stream media, browse websites, and so forth. As a result, users expect their mobile devices to provide many functions, including reliably working on a mobile telecommunication carrier to receive constant and dependable telecommunication and data communication services.
The reliability of a mobile device and the telecommunication and data communication services that it subscribes to may be affected by multiple factors, such as geography and terrain, device features and capabilities, as well as network infrastructure and network coverage deployment. With the ever increasing complexity of contemporary mobile devices and wireless telecommunication networks, users may become overwhelmed by the amount of device and network parameters that can affect communication service performance.
Due to the integral aspect of today's mobile devices coupled with their ever increasing complexity, many users simply return their mobile devices at the earliest symptoms of service problems. In at least one study, over 63% of returned mobile devices are found to have no fault, which costs the global industry $4.5 billion in replacement, refurbishment, and shipping costs.
Even when users call a customer service representative (CSR) of the mobile telecommunication carrier to resolve their mobile device problems, their issues may not be readily resolved because the quality of the response may be a function of how accurately a user describes the status of their mobile device and the experience level of the CSR. Routing every service call to the most experienced technician is impractical because the technician may be overloaded with requests, thereby increasing the waiting period for the customer, and thus, degrading the customer experience.
While diagnostic checklists can be used by users and customer care representatives alike to systematically analyze and solve mobile device problems, such diagnostic checklists may be laborious and time consuming to use. Further, some diagnostic checklists may not be tailored to the specific mobile devices that are experiencing the service problems. Other diagnostic checklists are developed with the assumption that a user has a certain level of familiarity with the features of their mobile device. This may pose difficulty in a situation where the CSR is providing remote support via telephone and the user actually lacks such familiarity. Accordingly, the use of diagnostic checklists that are part of a rigid flow may on occasion lead to frustration for both the user and the customer care representative.